A Bunch of Damned Walked into a Bar
by God's Demonic Messenger
Summary: Ia's Damned have swept through the galaxy like an avenging wind, blowing through the Salik like they were dry leaves. That sort of performance is bound to earn them a bit of infamy. So what happens when they finally get some real R&R?


"Alright greenie, there's a few things you need to know about this place," Corporal Glivers said as he pushed open the door. The loud sound of military servicemen and women in various states of inebriation assaulted their eardrums as it swung wide.

Loud laughter and shouts meant to span the length of the room, calls for drinks and congenial ribbing, and sporadic outbursts of song intermingled into a near-unintelligible mass of sound.

The smell of sour beer and rapidly solidifying body odor burned its way through their nostrils as they stepped inside.

Private Anders, the most recent addition to the Company, followed somewhat warily. Behind him, walking with the careless nonchalance of well-travelled Marine, came Lance Corporal Jackie Flanders, or Flak Jack to her teammates.

It was their first bit of leave since the second assault on Dabin two weeks ago, and they, being model, upstanding Marines, had decided to spend the first day of it getting plastered. The Company had thinned out a bit during that fight, and they knew that Private Anders wasn't going to be the only new face to turn up in the next few weeks.

"First off," Glivers said loudly over the din of the crowded bar as they all searched the writhing mass of drinking marines for a table, "As the greenest of green grass our company's seen in a good long while, you have the honor of buying a round of drinks for all the hardworking soldiers that kept you safe during Basic!"

Apparently, Glivers voice carried fairly well in a crowded pub, because several patrons at the nearby tables cheered at his words, stopping almost in the middle of a lurid line of song to do so in some cases.

"Like hell I do!" Anders shouted back. A great moan of despair swept through the tables near the door. "What am I supposed to buy 'em with, my service medals? As if I have any of those to spare. They've barely even paid me yet; I've hardly got enough credits for my own drinks."

"Now see here-" Glivers began, only to be interrupted by the relatively soft yet remarkably audible laughter of Flak Jack.

"Come on Liver, just because you were dumb enough to buy that crap when you were new doesn't mean the rest of the species is," she said.

Not responding to his indignant look, she stood straight on her toes and searched the crowded area, then turned to two Marines sitting at a mostly empty nearby table and shouted, "Oi! Mind if we join you? Place is a bit crowded!"

"Sure," the Marines at the table intoned. They shuffled their chairs over to make room and the two soldiers and the greenie moved to sit down.

"Right, fine," Glivers grumbled as he took his seat. "Goddam buzzkill is what you are, Jack."

"Always my pleasure," she replied, grinning widely. "Feel free to come back any time."

"Sod off," Glivers said roughly, but a small tilt of his lips gave him away. He nodded at one of the other Marines at the table. "I'm Glivers," he said, "That's LC Flanders, and this is the very latest in moveable cover technology, straight out of Space Force R&D, codenamed Anders."

Smirking, the taller of the two Marines said, "I'm Jacobs."

"And I'm Richards," the woman next to him said. "Where you guys out of?"

"The Sun Tzu, just docked for repairs after the fight at Dabin," Jack replied.

The two Marines hissed in a breath, "I heard that was a hell of an engagement," Jacobs said.

"Hell's the right word for it," she replied. "It… didn't go smoothly for us."

"Damn," Richards said sympathetically. Not much more really needed to be said. After five years at war the only soldiers who hadn't been through a tough fight yet hadn't seen combat at all.

"Anyway," Glivers said loudly, as if there had been no interruption, "Greenie's gotta learn the ropes one way or another. So, like I was sayin', there's a couple things you need to know about dives like this."

"Besides never trusting your advice?" Anders said, smirking.

"Rule Number One," Glivers said seriously, ignoring him, "Watch what you say, and who you say it to if you wanna keep that green blood o' yours on the inside."

Anders' amused look fell away. "Why? Are firefights common in Marine bars?"

"No self-respecting Marine needs a gun to kill a person, green blood. They didn't teach you all that hand-to-hand for nothing," Glivers responded. "That's my point; you don't know what's what. I'm tryin' to fix that, so shut up and listen."

"Right, four types of soldiers come into a place like this," he continued. "First, you got greenies like you. Mostly harmless, but they might take a bite outa ya' on the way to scratching at yer arms or somesuch."

He grinned wickedly at Anders' scowl.

"Hold on, this sounds like it'll take awhile, and I'm thirsty," Flak Jack said.

"I'll get some drinks," Anders said, rising from his chair. "What do you want?"

"Short beer to start, I think," Jack said. "It's still early."

As Anders headed toward the bar, Glivers shouted after him, "Bring me back a double shot of whisky!"

It only took a few minutes for Anders to return bearing two glasses, one a tall glass with foam dripping down the side, the other a simple green bottle of soda.

He set the glass down in front of Jack and took his seat.

"Where's my whisky?" Glivers demanded.

"You can buy your own damn whisky," Anders replied calmly, sipping from his bottle.

"You bought her a drink!" he protested.

"She's a nicer person than you are," Anders replied smiling.

"And that," Jack said before Glivers could respond, raising her glass, "is how you get a free drink!"

Jacobs and Richards busted up laughing, and after a moment the scowl on Glivers face was replaced by a very wide smile. "Dammit LC. Fine, give me sec, I'll be back," he said as he rose from his chair. It only took him a minute or so, then he sat back down with a tall glass flagon filled with a dark ale.

He took a long pull of his drink. "Ahh. That's exactly the thing," He sighed appreciatively. "Right, four types of soldiers. First, greenies like you. Second, guys and gals like us four," he said, gesturing to the other marines seated at the table. "We've seen what this war's really like and it fucking sucks, so we drown our sorrows every chance we get."

"Third, and these fuckers are the real threat, every now and again you got some poor bloke who just came back from their own fucking Alamo. They're one of maybe a handful of guys that made it out alive, usually because they hid under corpses till they could make a break for an evac shuttle or something equally horrible.

"They come back with their head not quite on right, and you can hear it rattlin' around a bit every time they open their mouth," Glivers took another sip of his drink, "Anyway, you come back from a combat and sometimes you just wanna blow off some steam, right? You pick on a greenie, shit tends to get out of hand and the next thing you know, the greenie's off getting his arm reattached and you end up hauled in front of a Board of Inquiry."

Anders smiled at that. "It's not fucking funny," Glivers said harshly. "'Bout a tour and half ago, I came to a pub just like this one and that actually happened. Seasoned soldiers don't remember what it's like to be green, and greenies like you don't understand what it's like to be seasoned. This greenie thought he could handle himself and this heavyworlder ripped his goddam arm off. Tore it clean off, didn't he Jack?"

"Yup," Jack said succinctly, then she continued sipping at her drink.

"That's why I'm tellin' you this," Glivers continued. "Because I like you well enough but you still think a Marine needs a weapon to kill another Marine. All it takes is a little overconfidence and a little carelessness between two meioas, and somebody's arm ends up floppin' around on the floor."

Anders apparently looked appropriately horrified, because Gilvers continued, "So, if you're just lookin' to blow off some steam, you gotta know what to look for. You gotta be able to tell who's green, who isn't, and who you'd have to be suicidal to mess with.

"Now the second type, they're like us. They seen the dark sides of this fucking war but are still more or less intact. We laugh and joke and shit, but you can always tell us by the way we walk," Glivers pointed off toward the door. "See that bloke that just walked in? Look at his shoulders; straight but relaxed. A relaxed body's faster to react."

"Yeah, I know," Anders interrupted. "They taught that in Basic."

"There's a world of difference between knowing and doing, greenie," Glivers chided. "Anyone watching you walk can tell straight away you ain't never seen combat. You're trying to relax but you're not used to it, so you look twice as stiff as if you didn't try at all. Combat drills that into your bones; you don't learn it, you don't survive. Someone that's seen combat is relaxed on instinct."

"Fine, fine," Anders replied, rolling his eyes.

Glivers gave him a searching look before he said, "The third type is the type you give one hell of a wide berth. I seen an entire bar part like the goddam Red Sea when one of them walks in. A seasoned soldier might rip a guy's arm off because he doesn't remember what it's like to be one of your lot and he's had a few too many drinks, but one o' the wildeyes'll beat you to death with a chair leg without stoppin' to think, all while cold sober.

"Might not even realize they're doin' it till after they're pinned to the ground by the rest of the bar with your blood soaking into their shirt and your eyeball hangin' from their collar."

"You've seen that happen?!" Anders asked, horrified.

Glivers tilted his head back and forth and shrugged, "Eh, maybe not quite like that, no, but close enough. Meioas like that are just sane enough to escape the psych ward and a discharge, but you don't ever wanna pick a fight with one. Hell, you don't wanna pick a fight when one's there at all. Just wait for another day."

"So wait, the officers just let you pick fights in random bars?" Anders asked incredulously.

"I wouldn't say they let you," Flak Jack said. "More like 'grudgingly allow.'"

"What the hell does that mean?" Anders asked.

"The officers know the difference between a bar fight and aggravated assault," Richards piped in. "War like this, they know people just need to blow off some steam every now and again. And if they really followed the letter of the regs, a third of the Space Force would just up and disappear." Richards looked down at her glass and said, "Meioa can only burst into a room to see a Salik grunt eating a 9 year old alive so many times before the anger you bottle up is too much for the Chaplain to handle.

"Out there," she continued, twisting her mug around in its condensation ring, "On Duty, you have to keep it all in check. You have to be disciplined, you have to be able to stop when you need to, you have to stop yourself from going too far. You have to be able to fight a war where only one side's playing by the rules. Then you get Leave and all that crap comes flooding back." Richards looked up, a wide grin spreading across her face, "Has to go somewhere, so better into something that can take it, right?"

"They don't let you get away scott-free," Jacobs said, probably noticing the beginnings of an argument on Anders' face, "They'll make you scrub the barracks for a month or assign you to lavatory duty for a couple weeks but it won't go further than that. The good ones probably wouldn't even put it on your record."

"Damn," Anders said. "Bit different than what they said in Basic, that's for damn sure."

"Exactly," Glivers said. "Which is why we're having this conversation. Because around here you don't know shit from brownies, and it could get you seriously hurt or dead." He glared hard at Anders, as if he was daring him to argue.

"Did you just say that?" Flak Jack asked, the quaver of a laugh shaking her voice. "Did you really just say 'shit from brownies?' You idiot!"

All three of the Marines and Anders besides broke into helpless laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up you fucking dunces," Glivers said. He tried to wait for their laughs to die down, but when they didn't he shouted, "Fuckin' get a grip! It wasn't that funny!"

Jack managed to reign in her laughter after a moment then said, "God. That's what I like about you Glivers; you say some of the dumbest crap I've ever heard with complete sincerity. Honestly, if you make it past Corporal I'm switching to the Navy!"

"Hardy-fuckin'-har," Glivers said. "Now would you let me finish?"

After a moment, Jack nodded, the huge grin spread across her face shrinking down to almost nothing after a moment. "Thank you," Glivers said, then he turned to look at the much-less-successful straight face of Anders. "Where was I? Oh right, wildeyes. Wanna know why they're called wildeyes greenie?"

He paused, as if to give Anders the opportunity to answer. When he didn't, Glivers continued, a note of impatience in his voice. "They call 'em wildeyes because the one surefire way to tell 'em from a crowd is they've got wild eyes."

"You don't say," Richards said.

Glivers ignored her. "You can usually see the whites all around them, and they dart from place to place, never stayin' put for more'n a second, like they expect a Salik to jump up from under a table.

"Like I said, don't ever try and pick a fight with a wildeyes," he said. "Might be the last thing you'll ever do, and there's no dumber way to die in a war. They don't give out medals for dying in a stupid bar fight because you were too stupid to let a mad dog lie."

Anders took a very deep breath to compose himself, then, his previously ear-to-ear grin reduced to a small smirk, he asked, "What about the fourth type? You said there were four types of soldiers…"

Glivers grinned mischievously back at him and said, "I did, didn't I? Good on ya for payin' attention. The fourth type's a lot harder to spot, and they don't often come to strictly Marine bars like this one.

"These meioas don't look like the rest of us if you know what to look for. Look around you? How many meioas you see sittin' by their lonesome? Nursing a drink all alone, or maybe with a couple o' others doing the same?

Go on, I'll wait," Glivers said with a satisfied smile.

Anders shrugged and stood up, making a show of looking around the room. He looked around for a minute, then finally said, "I don't see any."

"Exactly," Glivers said. "Us Marines, we like to let loose when we're off duty. Have a couple hard drinks, get in a few fist fights, sing a few raunchy songs, and just generally have a good time. This last group's different. They know things. Secrets, lies, Classified information, the sort of thing they don't trust to us lowly grunts. Can't be lettin' loose when your head's so full of shit like that.

"They aren't necessarily officers, but their pay grade's way higher all the same. The Brass trust them to be in control and they don't stay where they are unless they prove the Brass right.

"Meioas like that may be Privates like you in their fields, but most of 'em could take someone like you one handed. Hell, probably take me too."

"That's remarkably honest of you," Jack quipped. "I think I can finally see why they made you Corporal. Here I was, thinking it was because you were the only Private without a debilitating injury when Lassiter bought a star and they were too lazy to bump you back down again."

Glivers pointedly ignored the laughter that passed through the table before continuing, "Point is, though you'd probably just end up on the floor with stars dancing on the ceiling for a bit, it's not worth the embarrassment.

"'Sides, it's downright disrespectful," he said. "Lotta times, it's one of them reserved types coverin' your ass with a Heck from a mile away while you make a break for the evac shuttle, or clearin' out defenses ahead'a time to make sure your dropship don't get shot down before you touch dirt."

Glivers took another long pull off his drink, finishing it off, "Ahh," he sighed contentedly, smacking his lips. "Right, pop quiz time. You watch the door, and you tell me who's what as they come and go. Get five in a row correct, I'll foot your next drink. Get two wrong, you buy me one.

"I'll give you a moment while I grab another drink," he said as he rose from his chair.

"Hey, grab me one of those dark ales, would you?" Jack said.

"You can get your own damn drinks," Glivers quipped back over his shoulder. "I ain't a nice person, remember?"

Anders watched him go then turned to Jack. "So how much of that should I actually listen to?" he asked.

"Most of it," Jack said. She smiled when she saw his raised eyebrows. "Yeah greenie, I mean it. Glivers' got a good head on his shoulders, he just sucks at putting thoughts into words."

"Alright, fine," Anders said. He looked back toward the door and tried to pick out who was what.

When Glivers returned with his drink, the contest began in earnest, and over the course of the next hour Anders managed to win two free drinks but was forced to foot the bill for Glivers less than gradual inebriation via four shots of malt whiskey and three pints of ale, eating up pretty much all of what money remained of the paycheck he'd received on his last day of Basic.

Which was around the time he called it off.

Richards, Jacobs, and Flak Jack had managed to fund their own drunkenness, and they'd swapped stories about their respective units with friendly competitiveness over the course of the night, singing a few of the songs their units had made up about each other.

In a lull as each Marine debated whether to order another drink, Anders looked back at the door just as a small group of six soldiers walked in. They were all in civies, but each wore a jungle camo hat with a Company patch stitched to the front. From what he could see of it, it looked like a simple snowflake surrounded by flames.

"Whoa. I'd be willing to bet another drink those meioas are type four. What do you think Glivers?" he said.

A hush spread through the bar, starting with the tables near the door and seeping like a pool of ice water until it reached every corner of it.

"I don't believe it," Glivers whispered almost reverently when he glanced in their direction. "Ain't never seen one of them 'place like this before."

When Flak Jack turned around she whispered just as quietly, "Holy fucking hell.

"It's the Damned."

"Who are the Damned?" Anders asked.

All four of the other Marines turned to stare at him, along with several others sitting at some of the surrounding tables. "'Who are the Damned?'" Gilvers echoed incredulously in a strong whisper. "'Who are the Damned?' Greenie, how the hell do you not know who the Damned are?!"

"Lay off him Liver. He hasn't been in the Marines a month yet," Flak Jack said. "They're so secretive, small wonder a glorified civie doesn't know who they are."

"Still," Jacobs piped in, "The Damned are pretty famous by now, even with the civies. They save enough of them to make an impression after all."

"Greenie here's from a brand new Independent Colony world," Flak Jack said. "Probably didn't get to access the Nets till high school."

"Holy hell, I been doin' this bass-ackwards," Glivers said louder, as sound returned to the bar. "Fuck. Right, backtrackin' a bit, Rule Number One is, one of the Damned walk into the bar, you buy that fucker a drink. Any goddam drink they want."

"What, seriously?" Anders said, looking skeptically at Flak Jack. When she didn't contradict Glivers, he said, "Why?"

"You know that old Terran sayin', 'Ain't no atheists in foxholes'?" Glivers said. Anders nodded. "Well it's been a long time since that applied straight, what with how many goddam religions there are now, but in this war it's true to a point. Only, when the shit's really hittin' the anti-grav and it's lookin' like you aren't gonna make it out alive, you pray to the Damned. You pray hard and honest that those meioas think your sorry, worthless, good-as-dead ass is worth saving.

"Cuz if they do," Glivers said dramatically. "If they do, you might as well start plannin' your next shore leave, because no matter how bad the situation is, no matter how many Salik bastards there are, the Damned ain't never lost a fight, and they only show up for the worst ones."

"Bull shit," Anders said. "Nobody's that good. LC, how hard's he pulling my leg right now?"

Flak Jack shook her head, "He isn't. I've never heard of them losing a fight and like he said, they don't bother coming to anything less than a suicide mission. They show up, pretty much singlehandedly win the battle, then leave just as fast. I heard their CO's a big time psy. A buddy of mine that mustered out told me he heard she was a precog to boot."

"Exactly. To us grunts, the Damned are like a flock of avenging angels that swoop down from on high to carry us right back outta hell," Glivers said. "To the Salik, they're like the Devil himself, crawling out of a fiery pit to burn their sorry asses to ash."

"That last part's almost literal, surprisingly," Richards said.

"No shit?" Glivers said, turning to the other Marine.

Richards nodded, "A buddy of mine from Basic got transferred to Intel a couple months into our first deployment, and he told me last time I saw him about an interrogation he heard about on his first day there. Apparently it was one of those things people just couldn't help repeating; like an institutional joke, you know? Salik officer got captured, but the bastard wouldn't give them anything, just kept repeating the same thing over and over again. Couldn't even read his mind 'cause he was repeating it in there too.

"My buddy said it more or less translated to 'Curse the white-haired devil.'"

"Their CO has white hair, though she sure as hell isn't old enough to," Jacobs explained.

"So they're a really good unit," Anders said. "There are plenty of those. I mean, I've heard stories about the Knifeman Corps—"

"Stupid idiot, you ain't listening," Glivers interrupted angrily. "Look, nobody really knows how many of them there are, but there can't be that many because they only ever show up on this one Frigate. Some of the Navy pilots I talked to on the way to a drop said the ship shows up, takes out more enemy ships than the whole goddam defense fleet combined, sometimes with a bigass fucking laser, then leaves.

"When they put boots on the ground, they ain't got more than a couple fireteams in standard issue mechsuits, but they blow away half the Salik ground forces and turn the whole goddam tide of the battle," Glivers said.

"I saw them once," Jacobs said. "I was stationed on Dabin, the first time," he paused significantly. The first assault on Dabin was one of the most violent in the war up to that point. "The Salik threw everything at us. We were so outnumbered we'd pretty much decided there wasn't going to be enough ammo on the planet to win that fight. Guys were dropping left and right, the ammo was getting scarcer and scarcer, and the cover was getting harder and harder to come by. Then out of nowhere a single dropship passes by overhead and drops a couple fireteams right in the thick of it.

"The meioas were fearless," he continued, "just charged right into it with plain old mechsuits and took out half the Salik, just like he said. Must have been close to a hundred, hundred and fifty Salik all around us before they showed up, too.

"And I don't think they missed a shot. Their medic checked to make sure we could take care of our wounded, then they all took off at a run. Didn't see them again for the rest of the battle. Didn't see many Salik, either."

He took a sip of his drink, then said, "Honestly, I've never seen a unit fight like that. As crazy as it sounds, it looked like they knew exactly where the Salik would come from. They just aimed and fired, aimed and fired, aimed and fired, with no pause at all. And the Salik weren't always in their field of view, and usually not very close to each other. It was completely surreal."

"How many of them were there?" Anders asked.

"I dunno. Like I said, that fight was beyond crazy," Jacobs answered. "I couldn't have told you how many of our guys were still fighting at the time. All I saw was a couple of fireteams. Maybe four? So about sixteen soldiers?"

"No way!" Anders said.

"That's why when one of the Damned walk into a bar, you buy them a drink," Glivers said. "Because sixteen meioas might drop into the middle of a slaughter and save your ass from certain destruction, and you may never get another chance to pay 'em back.

"You mark my words, those fuckers won't spend a single credit on drinks tonight."

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"Can I buy you meioas a drink?" what, surprisingly, looked like a Navy chief said in the pitched and almost imperceptibly wavering tones of someone just a short beer from properly drunk.

Anders and the others had watched as soldier after soldier went over to the small group to do the same. Glivers had been right; in the hour or so since the Damned arrived, none of them had made a single trip to the bar.

If they'd accepted even half the offers they'd received from all the servicemeioas in the bar, they'd have passed out a quarter hour ago.

"Well," Jacobs said, rising from his chair, "I think I'll go pay my respects. Probably won't want a drink at this point, though."

"Ey, lemme come with you," Glivers said. He casually chugged the rest of his drink and stood himself, with only the barest hint of a lean. "You lot coming?"

"Might as well," Jack said. She and Richards stood and Anders followed suit. The six of them weaved their way through the bar toward the back corner where the six Damned sat, their backs to the wall and an exit next to their table.

As they walked, the near-constant drone of alcohol-bolstered conversation quieted somewhat, and Marines all around them twisted in their seats to watch their progress.

Before they'd made it halfway, several other patrons rose from their seats as well. By the time Anders and the others made it to where the Damned sat, the Damned had looked up from their conversation and were watching them wryly.

"Hey Corporal, I think we're being invaded," the woman sitting on the left-most bench of the corner table said, "Think we should call the Marines?" She absentmindedly returned a pair of stiletto knives she'd been twiddling between her fingers to the sheaths in her hair.

"We are the fucking Marines," Glivers responded with the careless bravado of the well-inebriated. "Eyah?!"

"Hoo-rah!" the entire bar shouted back in answer.

"Well don't just stand there, pull up a seat," the broad, dark skinned man situated in the middle of the bench said. "Or should I say seats..." he continued as half the bar shifted to face them and the ten or so Marines standing dragged chairs around the table.

Up close, the Damned looked every bit their reputation. Sure, some were smaller than others, some were shorter. But their eyes didn't just linger on the faces of the Marines around them. They darted fast as lightning up and down every one of them, assessing, evaluating. They didn't hide it, didn't pretend they weren't doing it, they simply slid from one Marine to the next, taking in the threat level and moving on.

They sat back comfortably, looking completely at ease with their potentially precarious situation. It was subtle, and only someone trained by combat would have noticed, but most of the people arrayed around them had seen their fair share of combat themselves.

Yet each and every one of them looked exhausted. They each had heavy bags under their eyes and a few had simply leaned their heads back onto the cushions of the bench they sat on with their eyes closed, as if sleeping.

"I just wanted to say," Jacobs began, looking around self-consciously at the dozens of Marines sitting around him, "I wanted to say thanks for pulling my ass out of the first assault on Dabin. I know for a fact I'd have died if you guys hadn't shown up."

"You were there?" the slender woman sitting to the broad man's left asked, sitting up straighter in her seat. "Which part of the planet?"

"Fort Landings, 'bout ten minutes out from the main research complex on the northern continent," Jacobs answered.

"You're kidding!" the woman replied. "My fireteam got dropped down about there! East or west side?"

"West," Jacobs replied, "Near the command complex."

"Ha!" The woman replied. She smacked the man on her right's arm lightly, "How's that for serendipity, Yoshida! All the battles we've been in, the one time you drag me out to a Marine bar I end up meeting one of the guys we saved!

"I'm Ensign Marshall," she said, reaching her hand across the table. "The meioa at the end there," she pointed at the fidgeting woman with the stilettos, "is Lieutenant Commander Helstead. This guy," she tilted her thumb back at the man on her left before continuing, seemingly oblivious to the noises of surprise and hasty straightening of backs that passed through the Marines when they heard Helstead's rank, "is Lieutenant Rico. The two sleeping ones are Corporals Siano and York. I'm guessing I was probably in the fireteam you saw."

"Son of a bitch," Glivers exclaimed, "You're Navy? I woulda bet solid credits you were a Marine, meioa!"

"Heh," she replied, somewhat ruefully. "Probably would have been easier if I had started out with you meioas. Fact is, I actually started out as a full-on nurse, till the Captain roped me into her Company."

"What?!" one of the other marines exclaimed.

"You're kidding!"

"What the hell were you doing down on Dabin?!" Richards demanded.

"Same as Jacobs here," she replied. "Fighting to get the Salik the hell off the planet," she replied.

"But," Richards stammered, "But why the hell-"

"I didn't even get the worst of it," Marshall replied, shrugging one shoulder. "Our Triphid and chaplain were down there too."

"The hell?!" Glivers said. "Did your CO get the whole infantry company killed or something?"

"What infantry company?" Marshall asked.

Lieutenant Rico laughed, a deep, bass laugh, forestalling any replies. "You'll have to forgive Marshall here," he said, "She was only in the Navy for less than a tour when she got transferred to the Damned, and apparently never got used to the way things are normally done."

"You're telling me," Jacobs began, "That the Damned don't have a company dedicated to fighting on the ground?"

"Sure we do," Rico replied. "The whole Company, all of Ia's Damned, is dedicated to ground combat. It's also dedicated to naval engagements, engineering, life support, and pretty much everything else that gets done on a starship.

"The Damned aren't like any military Company you've ever heard of. We're pulled from all four branches, and are technically a part of the Special Forces, but it's really easiest to think of us as our own separate branch of the military," he said.

"What do you mean?" Flak Jack asked.

"Well, first of all think about your rank structure," Rico replied. He reached toward the center of the table and pulled a handful of peanuts out of the bowl in the middle. He separated one and held it up between his fingers, "Here's your Private First Class, right?" He set the peanut down far to his left. "The PFC reports to the Private Second Class," he set a second peanut down next to the first, "Who reports to the Lance Corporal, who reports to the Corporal," he continued to set peanuts down one by own for each rank, "on up the chain of command to the, at least, Lieutenant First Class in charge of the Company.

"Then that officer reports on up through their chain of command, on and on and on," he laid down peanut after peanut, drawing the line further and further to his right, "until finally," he held up a single peanut dramatically, "you have Admiral-General Myang at the very top.

"But the Damned don't have a chain of command like that," he said as he grabbed another, much smaller handful of peanuts. "Privates like Yoshida over here are still at the bottom," he placed a peanut down in front of the long line he'd made, "Then it goes up to the Corporals. But our Company doesn't have Buck Sergeants. We've got one Platoon Sergeant between the Privates and the officers," He placed a peanut next to the four in the new line, "then there's the Platoon Leaders like Helstead and I, then the XO, then Captain Ia, Admiral Genibes, the head of the Special Forces, and finally Admiral-General Myang."

He pointed significantly at the two lines of peanuts. One was a good four times longer than the other. "As you can see, not at all typical."

"Second, our ship doesn't have a standard patrol route," he continued. "Each of you have a patch designating your patrol route right? One that shows where you're stationed?" He waited as several of the arrayed Marines nodded their heads. "We do too. Ours is an embroidered picture of Known Space."

Silence met those words, until finally Flak Jack said, "No wonder you guys look exhausted."

The woman named Lieutenant Commander Helstead snorted, her head resting against the back of the bench, "No, we're exhausted because this is our first bit of leave longer than 24 hours in about four and a half years, and we all just came from a good 16 hours of sleep to get a head start on the recovery process."

"The hell?" Glivers said, "Four years? Four fucking years? Your CO sounds like a goddam slave driver!"

"Oh she is," Helstead continued. The Marines around her noticed the slightly reproachful looks the other members of the Damned gave her for this comment, "If she didn't work herself twice as hard as she does us, I'd have hauled her up in front of a Board of Inquiry myself."

"How in the world does she work harder than that?!" Richards demanded.

"Simple: We work eighteen hour days; she works thirty-two," she said, "We get on-ship leave between battles, and she never shows. We all have to worry about physical or mental exhaustion but rarely both at the same time; she's doing her psy thing while in a firefight or naval battle. She's recording prophesies while the rest of her crew are sleeping off the last combat.

"It's still a bitch of an assignment," she continued. "We've got the highest casualty rate of any vessel in any of the fleets, but thankfully the lowest fatality one, and our fights are some of the highest-stress encounters in the war. I mean, some of the maneuvers we do and the odds we go up against… Well, let's just say most sane people would pass on the opportunity."

"Like what kind of maneuvers?" the navy chief asked curiously.

"Well, for comparison, what's the craziest maneuver your CO's ever pulled?" Helstead replied.

"Mine? Not much, honestly, but my friend from Basic told me about a variation on a Crazy Ivan that her CO pulled," the Navy chief replied. "The CO apparently gunned it at about a tenth of the speed of light through a gap about 600 klicks wide then swiveled around to present fresh guns. Ended up taking a hell of a lot of fire coming in and going out, gave about half the crew G-related injuries, and had to spend almost a month in drydock, but it worked."

The six members of the Damned looked at each other and smiled ruefully. "Must be nice," Marshall said after a moment, looking down into her glass, "doing normal maneuvers."

"Why, what sort of thing does your CO pull?" the Chief said defensively.

"I think it was our second or third combat, back when we still had the Hellfire," Helstead said. The other Damned nodded their heads knowingly. "That was the one with the asteroid missiles, right Oslo?"

"Yeah," Lt. Rico replied. "Full Cee if I remember correctly."

"We were hunting down some Salik bases right after our shakedown run," Helstead explained. "And the Salik had started to get an idea of what we were doing and had started defending our targets better, and we didn't want to reveal our full capabilities yet. Hell, most of the crew didn't even know about the main gun yet, and you lot have all heard about that, right?" All the assembled servicemeioas nodded, "So rather than go in all guns blazing," she continued, "Ia has us jury-rig a couple of standard missiles to contain high-density ore samples instead of explosives.

"So we came cruising up to the bastards at FTL speeds, then she pulls us just barely below Cee and we launch our missiles, then we accelerate again," Helstead continued. The navy chief's eyes started to widen, and Helstead smiled back at her, "Right on back up to Cee.

"Well," she explained to the other Marines, "if you're going at just under Cee, firing off a couple of missiles won't do much good against a target too far off to the side; the things can't change direction enough at that speed. In order to hit anything, your whole ship needs to be aiming at it.

"So we're plowing right at a couple Salik cruisers, a dozen or so frigates, and a space station at the speed of light, and the Captain changes our direction just enough that we scrape the side of the space station with our FTL bubble. Literally scraped it with the bubble at more or less the speed of light.

"We did that a couple more times and then called it a day," Helstead concluded.

"Jesus Christ," the navy chief whispered. "Jesus fucking Christ! Your CO is a maniac!"

"Not really," Rico piped in.

"Well, maybe a little," Marshall admitted.

"No, it's more like she's capable of doing things safely that the rest of us can't," Helstead said honestly. "She's a precog. Despite the fact that maneuvers like that were pretty common on the Hellfire, and still are on the Damnation, we've never had any life-threatening injuries."

"I still don't think I'll ever get used to her dry warnings of impending hull breaches though," Rico said, almost to himself.

"Yeah, but still," the chief said after a moment, "No one's that good! Sooner or later her luck's going to run out, and you guys are going to pay for it!"

"It isn't luck," Marshall said. She looked around at the two officers at the table before continuing, "We can't really discuss her full abilities in any sort of concrete terms, but you guys have all heard that she's the Prophet of a Thousand Years, right?"

"I thought that was just a rumor," Flak Jack said.

All the conscious Damned shook their heads. "Not a rumor," Rico said, his eyes staring off into a distance none of the Marines could see, "She can actually see a hell of a lot further than a thousand years, but she only has so much time to spend delving into the future, so she's restricting herself to a thousand years of influence."

"Only a thousand years, huh?" Glivers said. "Sure she's not just bein' lazy?"

"God help us all if she ever decides to be that," Helstead said with a smirk.

"So what is it with your ship's main gun, anyway?" the navy Chief asked. "I mean," she continued, oblivious to the Damneds' exchanged glances at the question, "how in the world is it so devastating? Did you guys find a way to stuff a couple hundred thousand tons of extra hydrofuel in your ship or something?"

Lieutenant Rico looked across at Helstead, who gestured for him to answer the question as she lifted her glass to her mouth, her eyes closed in exhaustion.

"I don't mean to ruin the mood here, but technically I'm supposed to report that question to my Captain," he began, "who would in turn report it to the Admiral-General herself as a possible espionage attempt, which would mean that you'd be brought before a Board of Inquiry to establish whether or not you had committed Fatality Thirty-Four, Espionage or Grand High Treason."

The speed at which all motion and sound in the bar ceased rivalled the daredevil stunt the Damned had just finished describing.

"I- I didn't mean-That's not-," the suddenly panic stricken Chief sputtered. The whole bar seemed to hold its breath as she sputtered into silence.

"Luckily for you, our CO's a precog, and she mentioned one of you might ask about it today and that none of you were even remotely a spy," Rico continued, with a passably comforting smile. "Which means you're off the hook. If it makes it to the Admiral-General's desk, it'll be accompanied by a 'precognitive guarantee of innocence.'"

A collective sigh escaped the gathered servicemeoias.

The assembled marines watched Lieutenant Rico glance over at Lt. Commander Helstead and the other sleeping soldiers. "Right, it looks like we should get going, otherwise we'd need your help carrying our unconscious bodies back to the hotel." He lightly shook his superior awake, then the two of them gathered up their soldiers and rose from the bench.

"Thanks for the drinks," Marshall said with a smile as the Damned moved through the parting crowd. Glivers and the others watched them pass through the doorway and out into the sunlight.

Every soldier in the bar stood silent, as if honoring the moment. Finally, one of them spoke.

"Totally worth it."

A chuckle went through the bar and every soldier returned to their tables.

/ Author's Note:

Funny story; I actually submitted this as an assignment for my university fiction-writing class. When it was peer reviewed, pretty much everyone loved it, and no one guessed that it was fan fiction.

Just goes to show that no matter what you're doing, if your work is quality, it has merit.


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